Received my VP930b. (Read the whole review if you read any of it.)
Previous monitor: 17" Samsung SyncMaster 710t TN 6-bit
Current: 19" ViewSonic VP930b P-MVA 8-bit/Overdrive
Both had been/are hooked up via DVI.
First impression: This thing's huge (19") and it's frickin bright as hell! Then I looked at the colors. Meh...washed out. I tried all of the color adjustments and none were that great.
So...I started up some Wolfenstein first. I noticed some more detail in the walls I hadn't noticed before (bigger dot pitch). Surprisingly enough, I noticed in like 90% of the transitions, this monitor exhibited nothing at all during movement except the slightest unnoticeable blur.
Battlefield 2 was next up. I went to FuShe Pass, and strafed myself so ahead of me was a pond and some grass on a blue sky. At that point, that particular color of grass on that sky left a very noticeable afterimage as I moved. Fortunately, that type of transition was very rare throughout my gaming experience. Obviously, that was the type of transition where VA panels hit 80 ms. The rest definitely felt under 15 ms. like the response graphs indicated.
Still, the colors just didn't feel right.
Dumbstruck, I remembered I forgot to apply the ICM color management gamma profile. I loaded up ForceWare, went to color correction, pressed the import button and loaded up the VP930 ICM as on the CD. Everything changed...literally. There was obviously more saturation and nothing looked washed out AT ALL any more. It's amazing how much a custom gamma profile can change things.
The colors on this thing were AMAZING as I browsed through some London Bridge photos on Google.
The text is a tad problematic. I couldn't get a ClearType setting that didn't exhibit color fringing (in ClearType Tuner), but one was fairly good, so I stuck with that. Turning off ClearType after using it for so long was not an option. It didn't look good at all without ClearType, but that's because I'm so used to it. Most of the text on the screen looks great. Just a couple exceptions where ClearType's changes become too evident. I may look at the registry, manually set a ClearType gamma, and report back.
Viewing angle wasn't as good as I anticipated, but still worlds better than my old TN. The colors just get less bright, at least they don't invert like my TN.
Grays are so much better on this display, and the much higher contrast is evident. I can't say enough about how the colors in this image look so awesome on the VP930b. It's like looking out a recently-cleaned clear transparent window. I don't think I could discern the difference between this monitor and that. I do prefer the colors on the VP930b to my old CRT, whereas my old CRT easily edged out my 17" TN to be honest.
There's only one problem. On a completely black image, the lower left and lower right exhibit backlight bleeding. Only does it get annoying on the BF2 load menu, where it's quite noticeable (more so than my 17"). Fortunately, it's limited to that scenario, and black in the middle of the display looks blacker than hell.
Overall, after adjusting the colors with the provided gamma profile, this monitor looks AWESOME. Comfortable on the eyes definitely (at lower, more natural brightness/contrast settings), and definite color contrast. My old TN's colors looked as if you put red-tinted saran wrap and had shone a bluish-white light through it. This one looks like superbright red LEDs in comparison. The white is actually white, not blueish gray. There is nearly no blurring in general use. The pixels in transition all maintain their color very well, compared to my TN in which the colors just smeared over each other. My old TN also produced quite a reddish hue on black-on-white website scrolling. The VP930b? Almost nothing.
If you have ANY questions about this monitor, PLEASE send them my way (via a reply below).
Previous monitor: 17" Samsung SyncMaster 710t TN 6-bit
Current: 19" ViewSonic VP930b P-MVA 8-bit/Overdrive
Both had been/are hooked up via DVI.
First impression: This thing's huge (19") and it's frickin bright as hell! Then I looked at the colors. Meh...washed out. I tried all of the color adjustments and none were that great.
So...I started up some Wolfenstein first. I noticed some more detail in the walls I hadn't noticed before (bigger dot pitch). Surprisingly enough, I noticed in like 90% of the transitions, this monitor exhibited nothing at all during movement except the slightest unnoticeable blur.
Battlefield 2 was next up. I went to FuShe Pass, and strafed myself so ahead of me was a pond and some grass on a blue sky. At that point, that particular color of grass on that sky left a very noticeable afterimage as I moved. Fortunately, that type of transition was very rare throughout my gaming experience. Obviously, that was the type of transition where VA panels hit 80 ms. The rest definitely felt under 15 ms. like the response graphs indicated.
Still, the colors just didn't feel right.
Dumbstruck, I remembered I forgot to apply the ICM color management gamma profile. I loaded up ForceWare, went to color correction, pressed the import button and loaded up the VP930 ICM as on the CD. Everything changed...literally. There was obviously more saturation and nothing looked washed out AT ALL any more. It's amazing how much a custom gamma profile can change things.
The colors on this thing were AMAZING as I browsed through some London Bridge photos on Google.
The text is a tad problematic. I couldn't get a ClearType setting that didn't exhibit color fringing (in ClearType Tuner), but one was fairly good, so I stuck with that. Turning off ClearType after using it for so long was not an option. It didn't look good at all without ClearType, but that's because I'm so used to it. Most of the text on the screen looks great. Just a couple exceptions where ClearType's changes become too evident. I may look at the registry, manually set a ClearType gamma, and report back.
Viewing angle wasn't as good as I anticipated, but still worlds better than my old TN. The colors just get less bright, at least they don't invert like my TN.
Grays are so much better on this display, and the much higher contrast is evident. I can't say enough about how the colors in this image look so awesome on the VP930b. It's like looking out a recently-cleaned clear transparent window. I don't think I could discern the difference between this monitor and that. I do prefer the colors on the VP930b to my old CRT, whereas my old CRT easily edged out my 17" TN to be honest.
There's only one problem. On a completely black image, the lower left and lower right exhibit backlight bleeding. Only does it get annoying on the BF2 load menu, where it's quite noticeable (more so than my 17"). Fortunately, it's limited to that scenario, and black in the middle of the display looks blacker than hell.
Overall, after adjusting the colors with the provided gamma profile, this monitor looks AWESOME. Comfortable on the eyes definitely (at lower, more natural brightness/contrast settings), and definite color contrast. My old TN's colors looked as if you put red-tinted saran wrap and had shone a bluish-white light through it. This one looks like superbright red LEDs in comparison. The white is actually white, not blueish gray. There is nearly no blurring in general use. The pixels in transition all maintain their color very well, compared to my TN in which the colors just smeared over each other. My old TN also produced quite a reddish hue on black-on-white website scrolling. The VP930b? Almost nothing.
If you have ANY questions about this monitor, PLEASE send them my way (via a reply below).
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